Page:Samuel F. Batchelder - Bits of Harvard History (1924).pdf/168

 lost; but at Yale in 1742 the official ingredients of the applepye were “one and three-quarters pounds of dough, one-quarter pound hog’s fat, two ounces sugar, and half a peck of apples.” Dieticians may speculate upon the connection between such a dish and the fact that in the Yale Commons supper was soon afterwards discontinued. The pastry at Harvard had a peculiar leathery consistency—perhaps originated by the cook who had been a saddler—that made the pies noted for perdurability. One old grad gave it as his opinion that they might have been thrown over the roof of the building without damage; and it was a common practice of thrifty students to preserve them for an emergency ration by spiking them with a fork to the under side of the dining-table. Concerning the bread and milk, A. B. Muzzey observes that the bread of his day was “‘a fit substitute for vinegar”; and Sidney Willard insinuates that “there were suspicions at times that the milk was diluted by a mixture of a very common tasteless fluid, which led a sagacious Yankee student to put the matter to the test, by asking the simple carrier-boy why his mother did not mix the milk with warm water instead of cold. ‘She does,’ replied the honest youth.”